


Those Jokes Have Truth To Them

by busy_bee7



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester In Love, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Openly Bisexual Dean Winchester, Pining, Roommates, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:46:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busy_bee7/pseuds/busy_bee7
Summary: Dean and Castiel have been roommates for years, and everyone knows that Dean is in love with Cas, including Cas himself. Which is why Dean's hurt when Cas asks him to pretend to be his boyfriend for a work event. Surely Castiel wouldn't be so cruel? But why's he acting hurt when Dean refuses?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 129





	Those Jokes Have Truth To Them

It wasn’t a secret that Dean liked Castiel. Seven years of sharing an apartment made Dean soft for the other man. Cas was easy on the eyes, with beautiful blue eyes, hair that somehow always needed a trim, and a smile that made Dean’s heart flutter. Yeah, he was screwed. He knew he needed to get over him, but never had it in him to do anything that would help, such as move out or quit having their weekly movie nights. (They aren’t dates; he swears). Of course, Castiel knew how Dean felt. Everyone did. It was hard to ignore the fact that Dean smiled more around him and shared practically everything with him. They were friends in high school, but not very close. Dean had always had a bit of a thing for the other boy, but never did anything about it. He was still closeted at the time. When he and Cas found out they were both planning to stay in their hometown they chose an apartment together and that was when Dean realized that he had made a terrible mistake in choosing to room with the most attractive man he knew.

Dean never said anything, but it was fairly obvious he was infatuated with Cas. He got some shit for it at the garage he worked at and their group of friends would even poke fun at him, but since Cas was never uncomfortable, he never bothered to move out.

“Dean? Would you be able to do me a favor?” Cas called out from his office. Dean was laying on the living room floor, recovering from a long day under cars. He rolled onto his stomach and whipped out his phone.

“Yeah, Angel, what’s up?”

“Will you come to the library fundraiser with me?” Cas asked, popping his head out of the office and looking at Dean with wide eyes. There was a question in his voice and in the way he stood. Dean knew Cas’s mannerisms way too well. He internally groaned at his own pathetic-ness.

“Sure? When?” He asked. Cas seemed too nervous for this to be a casual question.

“Tomorrow night. The staff are all invited to bring a plus one.”

 _Oh._ That sent a cold spike through Dean’s heart. A plus one, that meant romantic partner usually. Sure, Cas had come to Dean’s family Christmas dinners a few times and he had returned the favor by escorting Cas to his brother Gabriel’s wedding, but this wasn’t just their family. Their families all knew that Dean was in love with Cas and were able to joke about it. This was Castiel’s work environment. That meant meeting the ever-elusive coworkers Meg and Bal. Cas had been meaning to introduce him to his coworkers for a while, but this wasn’t how Dean expected that to happen.

“Sure, Cas. Do I need to dress nice?” Dean asked, looking up at his best friend. Cas seemed to be trying to contain happiness. _Weird,_ thought Dean. Why was he so happy? And nervous earlier? Dean blinked and once again chastised himself for looking into Castiel’s emotions too much.

“That green button up over a black t-shirt with some nice black jeans will do.” Damn Cas for knowing his closet better than himself.

“Alright, that’s settled. What time? What do I need to do?”

“I’ll be at the library already, setting up for the event. You can meet me there at six? We have snacks but I’m sure you won’t get your fill. We can go to the Roadhouse after if you’d like? We Should be done by eight.” Cas smiled, knowing Dean couldn’t say no to a trip to the Roadhouse.

_Damn him._

“Sounds good.”

It does _not_ sound good. The second Cas had gone back into his office Dean scrambled to his feet and stomped down the hall to his bedroom and shut the door. He huffed out a sigh. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket. Who to complain about Cas to today? He scrolled through his text conversations. Charlie would do for today. Even though she was constantly telling Dean that Cas liked him back, she was the most understanding of his situation. Dean had been there for her during her Gilda obsession in high school, after all. Dean sat down on the edge of his bed and typed out a quick message.

_Cas wants me to be his plus one to a work event tmr_

He waited. Checked the clock. It was after six, Charlie should have already left her comic shop for the day. He tapped his foot on the floor and bit his lip. Damn Cas.

**OOOOOH. As a date?**

He sighed. He wishes it was a date.

_No just as friends. That’s the problem dude._

**You’ve gone to Christmas dinner 2gether before whats the problem**

_That’s family. They all know Cas doesn’t like me back, so it’s not awkward. This is coworkers, they’ll assume things_

**Yeah bc theyre right**

Even Charlie had to be a bitch today. He chucked his phone at pillows on his bed and let out a loud groan. Why did he have to fall in love with his best friend? Why were all his friends complete assholes? Probably because Dean was an asshole himself.

It was Saturday, which was movie night. Dean was humming a tune to himself as he prepped the popcorn and placed an order for two large meat-lovers pizzas on his phone. Movie night, no matter how emotionally painful later, was Dean’s favorite night. Just him and Cas on the sofa together, eating pizza and drinking beer, and usually Cas fell asleep on his shoulder. For a few hours, Dean could pretend that Cas was _his._

“A romcom? Seriously, dude?” Dean asked, incredulously. He squinted at the screen. It was a Christmas themed one too. _For fucks sake._

“I happen to think they’re sweet,” Cas answered, coming up from behind Dean and selecting play on the menu. _Sure,_ Dean thought, _romcoms are sweet when you’re not in love with your best friend._

“Whatever you say, Angel. I’m getting the pizza.” He walked over the get the pizza from the boy at the door. As he settled into the couch with Cas at his side and a place with steaming pizza in his hand, he noticed that the romcom Cas had selected was about roommates who pretend to be together for Christmas. Dean swallowed a lump in his throat and filled his mouth with hot pizza before he could say anything stupid. Cas already knew Dean was in love with him, he didn’t need reminders.

“Kinda like us, right?” Cas murmured next to him. Dean coughed and attempted to swallow his pizza. He took a loot at Cas’s face. No joking expression to be found. He picked up his beer and chugged a few mouthfuls.

“Yeah, we didn’t pretend to be a couple, though. Our family knows we’re friends,” he frowned at Cas. Did he have to be that cruel as to point the similarities.

“Shit!” Cas cried out, and Dean raised an eyebrow. Cas hardly swore. He was raised hyper religiously and worked with kids at the library, so his vocabulary was quite clean. Cas now, however, looked guilty. “I forgot to mention you’ll be my fake boyfriend at the fundraiser.”

For the second time within minutes, Dean choked on his own spit. _What?_

“Uh, yeah, buddy, you did! I – you can’t expect me to do that!” Dean bit out, anger showing. Cas frowned.

“Why not? Everyone assumes we’re dating anyway. All you’d have to do is say we’re dating and put an arm around me. Unless that idea makes you uncomfortable…” Cas trailed off, looking unsure. Dean felt like slapping him with a slice of pizza. Cas had laughed at Charlie and Jo’s teasing remarks, accepted the smirks that Sam and Eileen gave them at holidays, and even tolerated Gabriel’s gross sexual jokes about the two of them, but he had never made fun of Dean himself. This was crossing a line. Dean bit back the urge to yell at Cas, or worse, cry.

“Because…no, I’m not doing that,” he set down his drink, snatched the remote from Cas and paused the movie. “You know why, don’t make me say it. Why would you – I gotta say, Cas, this…this is a low blow. Sam and Gabe might make jokes about us being together, but you doing it is another thing.” Dean felt as if his heart was going to break in two. That was ironic, of course. Cas had already broken his heart so many times.

“I…I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas cut in, frowning and refusing to meet Dean’s harsh glare. “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about the topic,” he said. Dean looked at his face critically. Cas’s gaze was lowered, and his brow was furrowed, but his lips were trembling slightly, and his jaw was set. Sad? Why was Cas sad? If anyone should be, it was Dean.

“Yeah, well. I do. Sorry.” Dean picked up his partial beer and grabbed two more from the six-pack on the table next to them. “Gonna need these,” he murmured to himself, and retreated to his bedroom down the hall. Once inside, he placed the bottles on his nightstand and threw himself onto his bed. He blinked hard and felt a tear run down his cheek. Damn Cas.

After chugging the three beers and removing his jeans and overshirt, Dean got in his bed without even washing his face. Let the tears wash his face tonight, Dean was too hurt to bother. He didn’t want to run into Castiel in the bathroom or hallway. Shit, was Cas still expecting him at the event tomorrow? He ran a hand over his gross and tear-tracked face. He’d see tomorrow. For now, he let himself wallow in his misery. How could Cas do this to him? Castiel asked him to pretend to be boyfriends, put on a movie about roommates in love, and pretend the entire time that he had no idea that Dean was in love with him already. Cas knew. Everyone knew. Dean let his touches linger, smiled at him when he wasn’t looking, let him drive Baby. He turned over in his bed. Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

When Dean woke in the morning, he regretted not washing his face and brushing his teeth before he passed out. Checking his phone, he blinked blearily at the amount of text messages he had received.

Two messages from Charlie:

**“What the hell did you do?????”**

**“Dean just come to the event tonight. Srsly.”**

A message from Cas:

**“Dean, I apologize for last night. My comments were unnecessary. I would still appreciate you being there tonight, but please don’t if you are uncomfortable. We can just go as friends.”**

And a message from an unknown number:

**Ur stupid.**

Dean snorted at the last one. At least that one was deserved. He sighed and checked the time. One pm. God, he needed to stop sleeping in so late. He groaned and cleaned himself up.

The apartment showed no signs of movie night. Cas must have cleaned everything up. Fuck, Dean felt guilty. Cas needed a fake boyfriend for an event and Dean had snapped at him. Of course, Dean made the most sense as a fake boyfriend. It wasn’t Cas’s fault Dean was in love with him. He sent out two messages, one to Cas and one to Charlie relaying the same message.

_I’ll be there_

He glanced back at the message from the unknown number. He sent back a middle finger emoji.

Dean fiddled with the collar of the moss green button-up that Cas had asked him to wear. He looked himself over in the mirror. He still looked like a dirty mechanic, but at least he was presentable. Running his hands over his face for what felt like the millionth time, Dean grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone, and left Cas and his apartment. Baby roared into life and Dean felt a little better. Driving Baby always made him feel better. When he pulled into the library parking lot, he glanced around in shock. There were never this many people at the library. It must be a pretty big deal. He sighed, checked his phone again, and decided that he would head in.

The familiar jingle of bells alerted everyone inside to Dean’s presence. Great. It was mostly people he knew from town, and a few familiar faces he had seen in pictures on Cas’s phone. Speak of the devil, Castiel emerged from behind the front desk, smiling, although it was rather strained.

“Dean, I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” he admitted, glancing down at his shoes.

“Of course, I said I would be. So, what’s the deal? Do you need to mingle or something?”

“Sure, let me find – oh! Meg, good to see you!” Castiel suddenly burst out, leaning toward the brunette woman who had seemingly come out of nowhere. Dean tried to bite back his wave of jealousy.

“Hey, sweetie, how you doing? Better than this morning?” Meg asked, and Dean tried and failed to contain his sigh. _Sweetie?_ Oh, shit. Had Cas found someone else to be his fake-date? Or worse, were Meg and Cas a genuine thing? Cas turned back to him, now.

“Meg, this is Dean. Dean’s my - ”

“Boyfriend,” Dean cut in. He saw Cas’s eyes widen and Megs eyebrows rise slightly. “We’ve been together for seven years, it’s nice to finally meet you, Meg, I’ve heard a lot,” he grimaced.

“Oh, Dean. You don’t need to pretend in front of me, darling. Castiel has already told me everything. Just the guests.”

“Oh,” Dean nodded, flushed. “Makes sense. Sorry, I just didn’t know for sure.” This was going terribly.

“Okay, uh, Dean, I need to talk to you in the hall,” Cas said, with an urgent look on his face. He grabbed Dean’s hand – and sweet Jesus did Dean never want him to let go – and dragged him through a few doors to a space where no one would overhear them.

“Dean, I told you, we can just be roommates. I don’t need to have a boyfriend, I just wanted to make a good impression on our donators and figured being a put together man with a partner would be ideal.”

“It’s fine, Cas, I was out of line, I know you just needed a fake boyfriend and I made the most sense, you didn’t mean to…you know, mock my feelings,” Dean swallowed, wishing that Cas would drop his hand.

“Your feelings?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Dean, I assumed you were just tired of everyone joking that we’re together, which is why you reacted the way you did last night,” Cas said, then his eyes turned almost frantic. “What feelings, Dean?”

Dean blinked. Seriously? Cas was going to make him say it?

“You know how I feel about you, Cas, don’t put me though this shit. Come on. Charlie and Jo are always saying how cute of a couple we’d make. Sam is always joking about how whipped I am on you. Gabriel’s…well, Gabriel is Gabriel. I don’t know why you feel the need to make me tell you,” Dean bit out, and looked away from Cas’s piercing glance. He bit his lip, looked upwards, and attempted to make sure the stupid tears that were welling up in his eyes didn’t fall.

“Dean…I thought those were…jokes. Oh my god. Dean, are you…do you…?” Cas was barely able to form a sentence. Dean looked back at his friend. What the hell? Did Cas _not_ know? He looked just as frantic as before, but with a hint of hope in his eyes.

“Yeah, Cas, I love you. You know that,” Dean huffed, watching Cas’s face carefully. His hand felt a squeeze, and he looked down to where Cas was gripping his hand like a lifeline. Glancing back up, he took in the shocked look on his friend’s face.

“I didn’t.” Cas’s face was stoic, frozen in his own awe.

Dean let out a small laugh, more of a sigh than anything. “Cas, buddy, everyone knows. I make you dinner every night. All the movie nights. I call you _Angel,_ for fucks sake. I take you to my parent’s house for Christmas. Did you seriously think all our friends would joke this much if there wasn’t some truth to it?” Dean cried out, pulling his hand out of Cas’s grip. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. That’s why I didn’t want to be your fake date.”

Castiel’s mouth was hanging slightly open and his eyes were still as wide as Dean thought they could get. He blinked a few times, and frankly, he kind of looked like a fish.

Dean drew in a deep breath, heart hurting, even though he knew Cas didn’t love him back. “Let’s go back to the party, Cas,” he murmured, turning around to head back. He hoped to God that there was alcohol involved in this gathering.

“Dean, wait!” Cas grabbed his shoulder and tried to turn him around.

“Let’s go.” He marched off, not willing to look at Cas’s disgusted face. He managed to get back into the main party, where he saw Meg and Charlie whispering to each other. He swallowed. The last thing he needed were those two being friends.

“Dean! How are you?” Charlie smiled brightly at him. Dean tried to smile as brightly as he could.

“I’m good, Red, how are you?”

“Great! Where’s Cas?”

“He’s somewhere, I don’t know,” Dean lied. He was saved by the man himself coming up behind him and wrapping an arm around his waist. Oh fuck. What the hell. What was Cas doing? What did he think he was playing at? Why did he insist on hurting him so much?

“You two finally get your shit together?” Asked Meg sweetly. Before Dean could cut in, Cas smiled brightly and squeezed Dean tighter.

“We did. Thank you, Meg. Dean, I’m afraid we will need to be heading out sooner than later. Meg will cover for me for the rest of tonight, right?” Cas said, completely unphased. Dean’s heart was going way too fast for his body. What was Cas doing? Were they going to the Roadhouse, where Cas would tell Dean that he needed to move out? Was Cas going to move out? He managed to nod along and follow Cas numbly out of the library. The cool fall air hit his lungs and made Dean squint. His eyes started to tear up for several reasons now. Was this the end of his friendship with Castiel? Fuck he hoped not, he didn’t think he could even move on from Cas without his friendship. He could live without Cas loving him romantically, but he needed Cas as a friend.

He ended up in the Impala, driving down the road back to their apartment, silently. He wouldn’t look at Cas the entire time. Dean really thought that he knew. Now he _did_ know, and Cas wouldn’t even say anything to him. He pulled into their garage and got out, shutting his door with more force than necessary.

“Dean?” he heard from behind him. He sighed and sat down on the steps leading up to their apartment. The concrete was cold, and he was so emotionally exhausted he felt like crying again, this time from sheer tiredness. His heart had been put though so much within the past twenty-four hours. Cas slowly sat down next to him and hugged his own knees.

“What, Cas? I can move out, if you want me to. Or we can just never say anything again.”

“Dean, I _really_ didn’t know. I’m so sorry. You must have thought this entire time I was ignoring you. I had no clue.”

“Yeah, well, now you do. What do you want to do with that information, Cas?”

“I’d like to kiss you.”

Silence followed. _What?_

“What?” Dean echoed his own thought. He looked at Castiel, who was biting his bottom lip and looking up at Dean hopefully.

“I never thought for even a moment they were joking about us because _you_ liked _me._ I thought they were joking about it because everyone knew _I_ liked _you,”_ he explained, shrugging slightly. “I guess they were joking about it because everyone knew we liked each other.”

“You…Cas, you serious here? Because I’ve been through way too much today to deal with anything fake.”

“I’m one-hundred percent serious. You think I would leave my own fundraiser if this weren’t so important? Dean, I love you too,” Cas said, wrapping an arm around Dean again. Dean exhaled. There was no way this was happening. Absolutely no way. But Cas’s arm around his was tight, and the look Cas was giving him was full of joy. Cas was smiling like he did the first time Dean made him homemade burgers, when Dean let him pick the movie, or the way that he did only when he saw a honeybee on a flower. Castiel loved him. Why? How did he not notice?

“Really, Angel?” The nickname slipped from his lips without thought. He felt the tension he had been carrying with him for years leave his shoulders as Cas shyly nodded. Dean laid his head down on Cas’s shoulder, trying to process the events of the night. He needed comfort, and his friend – boyfriend? – was right there, as always.

“How long?” Dean asked.

“Probably since we met, but I only figured it out about four years ago,” Cas’s low voice rumbled through Dean’s body from their connection point.

“I knew I loved you since we moved in together, Angel.” They were both now just listening to the sounds of the city as they sat on their own doorstep in the cold fall air. They were wrapped up in each other, whispering confessions and compliments for ages. Eventually, they fell into Dean’s bed, softly kissing each other and expressing their joy and shock with no need to move further – for now – and Dean smiled the way he had when Cas brought home honey from the farmers market and the way he did when Cas had called their apartment _home_ for the first time.

Now his home was complete, and Dean Winchester’s heart was happy and whole.


End file.
